Arsal takes on new life after militants are driven out
▶ Mayor confident life will return to normal after defeat of Tahrir Al Sham
I’m feeling safe but not normal yet. I’ll feel it’s normal when work starts
Residents of Arsal are getting a new start after the defeat of Al Qaeda-linked militants who controlled much of the Lebanese city’s outskirts for three years.
Militant alliance Fatah Tahrir Al Sham, led by Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, overran Arsal, a few kilometres from the Syrian border, in August 2014.
The Lebanese army pushed the militants out shortly after but skirmishes continued until last month when Hizbollah finally dislodged them.
The presence of the militants strangled Arsal’s economy which almost entirely consists of rock quarrying and fruit orchards.
“Arsal has had two wars,” said Basil Al Hujairi, the city’s mayor. “This is a fresh start for Arsal.”
The Lebanese army is now taking over militant positions in the hills that were captured by Hizbollah, which had begun to withdraw from the area, Mr Al Hujairi said.
The defeat of the militants meant that people could return to their stone-cutting factories, of which 90 per cent had been closed since 2014, he said.
Mr Al Hujairi also confirmed that 3G phone data services had been restored in the city last week after being shut down by the army to stop the militants using it.
Hizbollah’s defeat of Tahrir Al Sham resulted in negotiations that have so far allowed more than 10,000 refugees to return to Syria, many of them from camps in Arsal.
The city has a population of about 37,000 Lebanese and at least 40,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom live in tents in the city and on its outskirts.
Mr Al Hujairi said he expected further deals to be made with the Syrian government, including an imminent agreement hammered out with a Syrian negotiator to return hundreds more.
“We will facilitate returns for refugees,” he said.
Camps vacated by the return- ing refugees were being destroyed by the army.
Although thousands of refugees returned to Syria in recent weeks, others refused to take up the deal and instead moved from the camps on the city’s outskirts into those in the city.
“Here is better than Syria,” Umm Sherif, a refugee woman, said. She has two small children with developmental disabilities, and has been caring for them without medical assistance since she arrived in Lebanon in 2014.
Umm Sherif and at least 1,300 others moved into the city from Wadi Hammayid, one of the main camps in the area that had been controlled by Tahrir Al Sham.
Abu Mohammed, a father of six, said his family was moved from Wadi Hammayid to Arsal by the Lebanese Red Cross shortly after the Hizbollah offensive began last month.
“A local man provided the buses to move them,” Abu Mohammed said.
He said that while women and children were allowed to leave the area almost immediately, men were forced to wait until more negotiations between Hizbollah and militant groups had been completed.
“We camped for 20 days next to a Lebanese army checkpoint” before being allowed to enter the city, Abu Mohammed said.
Although life in the camp is difficult, he said he and other men feared being conscripted by the army if they returned to Syria.
He said the Tahrir Al Sham militants had prevented the Red Cross from delivering aid to the camp, and that even bread had to be smuggled in.
While refugees have been fleeing into Arsal from its outskirts, the city’s residents are waiting to venture out to their quarries and orchards.
Among them was Ayman Al Hujairi, the owner of a quarry and stone-cutting factory.
He had managed to make occasional visits to the factory since 2014 but was now awaiting confirmation that the area had been reopened after being retaken by Hizbollah.
“Everything in my factory was looted or destroyed. It will cost US$40,000 (Dh147,000) to fix all the equipment and buy new things,” the quarry owner said.
“I’m feeling safe but not normal yet. I will feel it is normal when work starts.”
At his clothing shop in Arsal’s centre, a Syrian man, Abu Adil, echoed those sentiments.
Despite feeling safer, he said, business had not yet picked up.
Abu Adil said that even though he had been running the shop since he arrived from Syria in 2013, he still could not afford to move his family out of the tent they live in.
“The economy is stopped until they open the quarries,” he said.